Installing Python at your school or at home is very easy. It takes a little time because you do need to go to every computer you are going to use and repeat these steps. It involves installing Python and Wing IDE 101.
You can begin by watching my videos for installing Python and Wing IDE 101 on either a Windows computer or on a Mac OS X computer. Follow the appropriate link below.
To begin, you need to get Python.You can get it from python.org for many platforms including Windows. Specific steps for installing on Windows are in italics below but Windows users should still read all the directions as Windows specific steps are still dependent on you understanding the overall process on a Mac machine. You should get Python 3.1 or later. Python 2 is an earlier version that is not compatible with Python 3.
If you are installing on a Mac, once you have downloaded it you need to double-click the file to mount the disk image. A new window should appear with an mpkg inside it. You can double-click on this file to install Python on your computer. You should click the "Continue" button a few times, select the destination drive for Python, and then you may have to enter the administrator password to complete the installation. To install on a Windows machine you should download the Windows version and then double-click the installer, clicking "Next" and "Finish" to complete the installation.
You should also install Wing IDE 101 from Wingware.com. It is a free Integrated Development Environment from Wingware. You may have to configure it to run Python 3.1 or later once it is downloaded. Go to Edit->Configure Python once it is downloaded and installed. Then type python3.1 (or your version you installed) in for the Python Executable on a Mac or click the Browse button and find python31.exe (or later version) on Windows.
You should also go to Edit->Preferences in Wing IDE 101 and go to the Editor -> Indentation and select "Show Indent Guides". This will help when learning to write code in Python since indentation is so important.